Technology that you have bought that went nowhere...

[Metal_Massacre_79]

Turbo-Grafx 16

Ah, yes. The TurboGrafx system. I still have mine (and it works). I remember having my mom drive me over to Toy R Us as soon as I got my first paycheck as a burger flipper at McD's to get this thing. A family member was good friends with a guy who worked at NEC and we were able to get games for around $5 each. Good times with these games.

Turbo-Grafx Nomad (actually, it's the TurboExpress)

I still have this thing too. It was rather large, but cool that I didn't have to buy another copy of a game to play on it. Being able to take the Hucard out of the TG-16 system and play it on the Express was awesome. It did suck that it took 6 AA batteries and they didn't last very long.

[Zentrandude]

betamax and a zip drive if that counts.

[areaseven]

I used to own a typewriter. Look where that technology went.

[EXO]

zip drives were great.. i still have my SCSI zip drive.

I have one of the iPhones, those things are so obsolete.

But the thing i bought but never used was a Motorola bluetooth handsfree speaker.... suffering succotash.

[lechuck]

I have soft spot for BetaMax, grew up with the system.

Come to think of it I think my dad must of been the ultimate Sony fanboy back then.

We had a grey Trinitron with those stereo ear speakers, a giant gold BetaMax VCR, a nice little double decker recorder/tuner one and a camera.

The double decker was kind of cool, because I think it also came with a special power pack with very longish batteries that you could insert, allowing one to take the equipment outside.

Personally, for me the biggest flop was the Nintendo 64.

RISC CPU, 64bit, cool 3d graphics... I went oohhh ahhhh at the beginning only to be going boohhh bahhhh later because of poor software support.

[Shaorin]

i myself have a soft spot for BETA. i have a used, japanese market L-500 cassette with lots of cool japanese commercials from 1985 on it!! currently, i only have a monophonic SL-2300 to play it with, but i intend to eventually replace that with either an SL-HF750 or SL-HF900...

SL-2300 (1984)

SL-HF750 (1985)

SL-HF900 (1985)

Edited September 11, 2009 by Shaorin

[emajnthis]

I had (still own somewhere, actually) a commodore 64, the "portable" one that was about the size of three brief cases stacked on top of each other. Also had a Laser Disc player, don't know where the player went but i still have a good number of LD somewhere. Also the Neo Geo Pocket, i actually really liked the device a whole lot, but it died a slow painful death at the hands of Nintendo. I was also one of those unfortunate people who purchased a MiniDisc Player, it seemed like such a good idea at the time but ultimately a huge failure.

[F-ZeroOne]

i myself have a soft spot for BETA. i have a used, japanese market L-500 cassette with lots of cool japanese commercials from 1985 on it!! currently, i only have a monophonic SL-2300 to play it with, but i intend to eventually replace that with either an SL-HF750 or SL-HF900...

SL-HF750 (1985)

Is that a remote or a tri-corder?!

[Agent ONE]

I loved my Game Boy Advance (the smaller one).. Perfect size and playability. The DS with the touchscreen and stylus was a large step in the wrong direction. And 2 screens just stupid...

*I know someone will want to throw a beer can at me for this.

[areaseven]

I loved my Game Boy Advance (the smaller one).. Perfect size and playability. The DS with the touchscreen and stylus was a large step in the wrong direction. And 2 screens just stupid...

*I know someone will want to throw a beer can at me for this.

To each his own, I'd say. Never was really big into Game Boy or DS since the first one came out 20 years ago. I still prefer Nintendo's Game & Watch units from way back.

[JB0]

I still have a Neo Geo Pocket Color that didn't really go anywhere. It was way better than the game boy color but obviously inferior to the later released Game Boy Advance. The analog stick on the NGPC is one of the best on a hand held to this day IMO. It's really too bad the selection of games was really limited.

Mmmm, NGPC...

Love mine too, though I'd love it more if it had another action button(giving it a Genesis-style ABC/Start layout). AB/Start gets crowded these days.

Look at it this way... the NeoGeo Pocket and WonderSwan are the only reason we finally got rid of the old monochrome GameBoy.

SNK and Bandai released their way-more-powerful systems in Japan. They knocked a bit out of Nintendo's monopoly. Nintendo released a quick color hack, SNK and Bandai released a quick color hack, Nintendo started developing the GBA(which I'm pretty sure was rushed as hell, and has a few very sloppy design elements).

SNK brought their quick color hack to America, then went bankrupt. They never even had a chance to bring Biomotor Unitron 2 over.

Then the GBA came out, and the portable monopoly began again.

*sigh*

At least Sony's done SOME lasting damage to the Nintendo stranglehold...

Nitpick: It's a digital stick. You can even hear the microswitches clicking.

[akt_m]

I loved my Game Boy Advance (the smaller one).. Perfect size and playability. The DS with the touchscreen and stylus was a large step in the wrong direction. And 2 screens just stupid...

*I know someone will want to throw a beer can at me for this.

I bought a NDS, played just a few games, then i saw Macross being released to PSP. That made me sad, for real...

The touchscreen can be useful in adventure games.